There are twelve automatic bids today, so we’ll be updating these as the day moves forward…

#16 – Binghamton (23-8, 16-3 Am East).  Binghamton took care of business today against upstart UMBC to win their eleventh in a row and earn the school’s first ever NCAA bid.  Reggie Fuller had 19/10 and alleged non-POY DJ Rivera added 16/5 in the RTC home win.  We had more coverage on today’s BGTD.

Projected Seed: #16

Something to Remember: Binghamton is um, size-challenged.  Their tallest starter is the 6’6 Fuller.  And have you heard that Tony Kornheiser has an affinity for this school for some reason?  Yeah, we hadn’t either.

#17 – Memphis (31-3, 19-0 CUSA). 25 straight wins in a row.  61 CUSA wins in row.  Memphis just keeps on truckin’, with another stellar defensive performance in holding Tulsa to 26% from the field and 2-14 from three.  This was also the 135th win for the Tiger senior class, who is focused on getting to #141, according to Coach Calipari.  Robert Dozier had 18/14 and Tyreke Evans had 18/5/6 in the same-old, same-old for Memphis.

Projected Seed: #2

STR:  We’re going to be a little contrarian here, but we’re not buying that Memphis is a national title contender this year.  Are they better than anticipated?  Absolutely.  Are they on the same level as UConn, Pitt, Louisville, UNC, etc.?  No freakin’ way.  Their defense is outstanding, statistically the very best in the land.  And CUSA is a better league than people tend to think it is.  But the fact of the matter here is that Memphis is playing with house money right now.  They were beaten by Georgetown, Xavier and Syracuse in the pre-conference slate.  Tennessee took them down to the last possession.  They rolled up Gonzaga in their building, but the Zags wilted in the face of their athletic defenders.  Memphis is a very good team – but they’re not going back to the F4.  Remember that you heard it here first.

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Welcome back to the weekend edition of Boom Goes the Dynamite. First off I’d like to commend rtmsf for his strong work on yesterday’s BGtD. You guys really have no idea how exhausting it is doing a full day’s worth of this is and he managed to do it with only a short break although it almost caused me to give up working on the site after being forced to endure the American–Holy Cross game yesterday. As he outlined in his After the Buzzer post last night/this morning, there are 12 conference championship games today. For the sake of maintaining our sanity and having enough energy in the tank for our huge March Madness preview, we’ll be taking multiple shifts but we promise to coordinate it so you won’t miss anything during our handoffs.

6:00 AM: Yes. That’s actually the time I’m starting this thanks to a “short nap” that ended up going from 9 PM to 5 AM. Obviously my posts will be infrequent in the early morning hours, but I’ll be passing along some news and links to you before the games start at 11 AM. The New York Times has been stepping it up with their college sports blog “The Quad” recently and has an interesting post on Louisville‘s Terrence Williams and his pre-game ritual of the giving himself a pep talk during the national anthem. Before anybody thinks this might be a Chris Jackson Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf situation, it should be noted that Williams actually stands during the anthem and is supposedly talking about family members that he has lost and asking that everyone on the court avoids injuries. Of course, we can’t verify this, but if we have any lip-readers in our vast legion of RTC readers, we would love hear your take on this particularly if you have seen this is in person.

7:00 AM: Before I head out for a few minutes to take care of some errands like stocking up on groceries for the coming storm where I probably won’t leave my apartment for 3 weeks. I thought I would pass along one of my favorite things we are doing at RTC right now. We enlisted the help of our correspondents and got them to send us their favorite March memories. We narrowed down the submissions to the 16 best entries and are counting down to #1, which will be revealed on Wednesday (the day before the tournament starts). I’d encourage you to check out the entries we have so far and keep on coming back throughout the day to see what they selected as their favorite March memories and then chime in with your memories on those moments.

8:45 AM: Ok. False alarm on that grocery run. Apparently Costco doesn’t open until 9:30 so after this post I’ll be on a short break. So today’s RTC East breakfast is brought to you by Flour Bakery and consists of their Bobby Flay-slaying “Sticky Buns” and a twice-baked brioche. Here’s a quick run-down of the games (title game in red–there’s a lot of red) that I will be focusing on today:

Early Games

• UMBC vs. Binghamton at 11 AM on ESPN2 for the America East title
• Memphis vs. #3 Tulsa at 11:35 AM on CBS for the Conference USA title

Afternoon Games

• Mississippi State vs. #16 LSU at 1 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• #6 Michigan State vs. Ohio State at 1:30 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals
• #1 UNC vs. #22 FSU at 1:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• Tennessee vs. Auburn at 3 PM on ESPN2 and Raycom in the SEC semifinals
• Maryland vs. #8 Duke at 3:30 PM on ESPN and Raycom in the ACC semifinals
• #25 Illinois vs. #24 Purdue at 4 PM on CBS in the Big 10 semifinals

Evening Games

• #23 Arizona State vs. USC at 6 PM on CBS for the Pac-10 title
• Baylor vs. #15 Missouri at 6 PM on ESPN for the Big 12 title
• Temple vs. Duquesne at 6 PM on ESPN2 for the Atlantic 10 title

Late Night Games

• San Diego State vs. Utah at 7 PM on Versus for the Moutain West title
• Morgan State vs. Norfolk State at 7 PM on ESPNU for the MEAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
  
• Buffalo vs. Akron at 8 PM on ESPN2 for the MAC title
• #5 Louisville vs. #20 Syracuse at 9 PM on ESPN for the Big East title
• Jackson State vs. Alabama State at 9 PM on ESPNU for the SWAC title (Periodic score updates for this one)
• Utah State vs. Nevada at 10 PM on ESPN2 for the WAC title
• Cal State-Northridge vs. Pacific at 11:59 PM on ESPN2 for the Big West title (This one is questionable)

10:55 AM: Ok. I’m back from my extended Costco run and have enough food to last me through the week. A quick summary on the early games. In the America East, Binghamton is a 5-6 point favorite (depending on your gambling establishment of choice). Honestly, I’m surprised that they aren’t bigger favorites since they come in at 22-8 while UMBC comes in 15-16 and the game is at Binghamton. It could be interesting though as they split the season series in the regular season with Binghamton winning the last game of the regular season at home against UMBC 71-51. I’m guessing the America East commissioner is rooting for UMBC to avoid the embarrassment of the CBS announcers having to explain why the conference’s regular season leading scorer (D.J Rivera) was left off the all-conference team. In Conference USA, Memphis is a 14-point favorite against Tulsa. Memphis might be playing for a #1 seed even with their ridiculously easy schedule. We’re hoping this game is more like the first time they met (a 55-54 Memphis win) rather the last time they met (a 63-37 Memphis win). I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be more like the latter, but we’ll be following it anyways to get a last look at Memphis before CBS’s new Billy Packer rips the NCAA selection committee for putting them over a Big East team.

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Greg Miller of WPSD Local 6 is the RTC correspondent for the OVC and MAC Conferences.

What in the world has happened to the MAC?  Check out Monday’s edition of bracketology and you’ll see Bowling Green as Joe Lunardi’s choice to be the MAC’s representative in the NCAA Tournament.  No problem with that, considering they edged Buffalo for the MAC regular season title on Sunday.  The problem lies with where they are seeded.  A #16 SEED!?!?!?  WHAT?!?!?!?  This conference is at maybe it’s lowest point in decades.  Scratch maybe.  This is rock bottom for the MAC.

With that being said, the play has been super-competitive within in the league.  Going into the final four game stretch, every team in the MAC East was alive for the league title.  We’re not even going to touch the West.  They were a flat debacle.  Nobody had a winning record.  Ball State had the most wins in the West and the Cardinals won 13 games.  Just sad.

The league did announce their postseason awards Monday.  Click here to take a look.

The league tournament starts on Tuesday and, if you throw out the West, the tournament should be wide open.

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With Selection Sunday coming up in just a few short weeks, fans of teams across the country are starting to analyze their team’s results looking at “quality wins” and “bad losses” (Aren’t they all?), digging into obscure computer formulas that analyze strength of schedule, margin of victory, and even more esoteric statistics. However, sometimes it is better to keep it simple. One of the better examples of this comes from Stephen Greenwell (h/t to Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball for pointing this out) who decided to look at the simplest correlation of them all: wins and NCAA tournament bids.

Steven looked at the results from the 2005-06, 2006-07, and 2007-08 seasons and stratified teams based on the number of wins they had that year regardless of their strength of schedule or any other factor. The results are below:

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Greg Miller of WPSD Local 6 is the RTC correspondent for the MAC and OVC Conferences.

MAC Standings as of January 12:

EAST CONF. W-L OVERALL W-L

1. Miami (OH)     1-0     8-5
2. Bowling Green     1-0     8-6
3. Ohio     1-0     8-6
4. Buffalo     0-1     8-5
5. Akron     0-1     8-6
6. Kent State     0-1     7-8

WEST CONF. W-L OVERALL W-L

1. Ball State     1-0     6-7
2. Northern Illinois     1-0     5-8
3. Western Michigan     1-0     4-10
4. Central Michigan     0-1     3-10
5. Eastern Michigan     0-1     2-13
6. Toledo     0-1     2-13

Since we’ve last talked, the MAC has officially tipped off conference play.  But before we dive into that, let’s look back at how the league ended non-conference play.

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Greg Miller of WPSD Local 6 is the RTC correspondent for the OVC andMAC Conferences.

As 2008 winds down, the MAC is looking more and more like a one-bid league (again).

The league still has yet to beat a ranked team and is 0-17 against the BCS leagues (Pac-10, Big Ten, Big XII, SEC, Big East & ACC).

If there is any good news, despite their stuggles the league still has four teams in the RPI’s top 100; #20 Miami, #85 Buffalo, #88 Bowling Green, #98 Akron.

Unfortunately a deeper look into the numbers shows us there are only two teams that falls in between #100 and #200 (#103 Ohio & #147 Ball State).

The rest of the league falls at #229 or worse.

As expected the East is king in the MAC with five of their six teams in the top 103.  The only team outside the top 103 is Kent State, a pre-season favorite.  The Flash have played a weak schedule, but should still be a factor come conference play.

Strangely enough, the league is ranked #17 in the RPI and has a #7 strength of schedule ranking.  Too bad they don’t have many wins over the strong part of that schedule.

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Greg Miller of WPSD Local 6 is the RTC correspondent for the OVC and MAC Conferences.

Reason #182 of “Why the MAC is a one-bid league”: Record vs. BCS opponents in 2008 is 0-14.

That’s right.  Thrrough November and very early December, the MAC is a robust 0-14 against teams from the BCS leagues. In fact, their overall non-conference record is a very unimpressive 33-44.  The league is having a very hard time picking up big out-of-conference wins.  They’ve had some near misses, but those don’t really count come March. A more telling stat, is the MAC is a somewhat impressive 15-7 at home in the non-conference.  That only makes their road record of 13-25 even more disturbing.  Again, this league needs to do a better job of getting home games in the non-conference.  If they can somehow make this happen, you’ll see these records improve and quite possibly see an upset of a BCS team or two.  The league did pull off some eye-opening wins the past two weeks.

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Game of the Day. Xavier 63, Virginia Tech 62 (OT).  This ending was almost as ridiculous as the Brandon Roy nonsense from a couple of weeks ago.  After it appeared the Va Tech had won the game on a layup by Jeff Allen with under three seconds remaining, Xavier threw it up ahead to Dante Jackson, who at that point was 0-8 with 2 pts in the game.  So of course he throws in a bank shot from 50 feet to win (see below).  This was easily the best game-winner of the young season, and will probably be in the running for best of the season this year.  XU’s Derrick Brown led the Musketeers with 16/6, but Va Tech may not have been in that position if their star had shown up on the offensive end – AJ Vassallo had a mere 4 pts on 2-13 (0-6 3FG) shooting, 15 pts below his average.  At least he stepped it up otherwise, though, with 10 rebs and 8 assts.

CvC.

• Duke 71, Michigan 56. Hey, Duke won another tournament title at Madison Square Garden!  Never seen that before!  Coach K is only 94-10 in November at Duke, so if you didn’t see this one coming, then you haven’t watched college basketball in the last three decades.  It got us wondering, how many of these tourneys has Coach K won over the years?  Surpisingly, he’s only won three of the five PNITs that he’s been in (1985, 2000, 2008) – sure feels like more. The Blue Devils relied on a balanced attack–both in terms of depth and playing both halfs (looking at you Henderson and Singler)–to vault themselves into a #1 seed in everyone’s Week 3 NCAA tournament mock bracket. On the other side, John Beilein and the Wolverine faithful should leave New York City happy though as their win over #4 (not for long) UCLA has served noticed that the Wolverines should be significantly better than last season’s 10-22 record. Perhaps the biggest thing last night’s win over UCLA may have done is make more recruits think about heading up to Ann Arbor so one day Beilein can start more Manny Harrises (game-high 25 points) and less. . .well everybody else on his team. We may find out just how far along these Wolverines have come on December 6th when they get a rematch against Duke in Ann Arbor.
• UCLA 77, S. Illinois 60. UCLA improved its east coast record to 2-3 under Howland by pulling away from SIU in the last quarter of this game today. The Bruins relied on a 20-2 second half run to win this game. This trip to MSG should be a useful motivation tool for Ben Howland to motivate his team, which is made up of hyped freshmen and remnants of a team that has made 3 straight Final 4s. The Bruins relied on their veteran leaders (Alfred Aboya, Josh Shipp, and Darren Collison) to win the game as that trio combined for 49 of the Bruins’ 77 points. If Howland is going to make a 4th consecutive trip to the Final 4, his freshmen will have to grow up fast.

More Paradise Jammation.

• Miami (FL) 70, Southern Miss 60. Honestly, I’m more interested in what Larry Eustachy was doing between games in the Virgin Islands than this game. However, I suspect that most of you are here for some keen insight into the game. Cliffs Notes summary: Lance Hurdle led the Canes to a victory despite an off night from Jack McClinton. I wouldn’t read too much into this game as a top 25 team should win games against teams like Southern Miss fairly easily, but it is still November so I’ll give The U the benefit of the doubt tonight, but they will have to step it up when they face the winner of. . .
• UConn 89, Lasalle 81. Speaking of teams that didn’t quite play up to expectations, #2 UConn struggled to put away LaSalle, a middle-of-the-pack Atlantic 10 team. Jim Calhoun got big games out of Kemba Walker and Jeff Adrien to avoid the huge upset against the Explorers (seriously, what kind of nickname is that?) who shot 50% from the field. However, the biggest story of the night (other than Psycho T returning) was the return of A.J. Price, who was solid if not spectacular in his return. In a related story, Price maybe getting a Facebook invite from Cameron Newton that is assuming, um, Newton can find a computer to log onto the site.
• USC 73, UT-Chattanooga 46. It’s the return of Taj Gibson who was AWOL for much of last season (I’m not sure who to name that type of performance after–Taj Gibson or Steve Slaton? We’re a college basketball site, so I’ll go with “pulling a Taj Gibson”.) Gibson paced the Trojans with 17 points and 15 rebounds. For the adolescent girl demographic, the big news of the night was that Lil Romeo took his first college shot. . .and missed.
• San Diego, 73, Valparaiso 66. The Toreros were led by center Gyno Pomare’s 17 points and 12 rebounds. The Toreros, who knocked off UConn in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year as a #13 seed face the winner of. . .
• Wisconsin 60, Iona 58 (OT). The 25th-ranked Badgers snuck by the Gaels behind 21 points from Trevon Hughes. Somehow, the Badgers won despite going 15 of 48 (31.2%) from the field. So basically, it was a typical Bo Ryan win. I can’t wait to put my Big 10 TV channel to use this year.

Other Games of Mild Interest.

• Utah 83, Ole Miss 72. The SEC is now 21-7 with losses to Mercer (x2), VMI, Utah, Illinois, Loyola (IL), and UNC. Other than UNC, not exactly murderer’s row there.
• Syracuse 86, Oakland 66. Jonny Flynn brought 18/4 off the bench to assist four others in double figures, but most importantly, SU held Oakland’s Johnathan Jones to 7-23 shooting and only 16 pts.
• Pitt 86, Akron 67. I’ll just leave you with this quote from Akron coach Keith Dambrot about Sam Young:

Sam Young physically reminds me of LeBron. Obviously, he’s not as good a player as LeBron, but he’s got that quick-twitch strength and ability to put the ball down. He’s a tough matchup.

I will be waiting to see Young try LeBron’s patented bullrush to/through the basket this year.

• Davidson 97, Winthrop 70. Stephen Curry with a ho-hum 30 points and 13 assists. The bigger news for Bob McKillop is the 20 and 15 from Andrew Lovedale. If the Wildcats can get a legitimate inside game going this year, they could be an extremely tough out in March with Curry bombing away from outside.
• Memphis 84, Seton Hall 70. Not much to say here. Memphis took an early lead and never looked back. One interesting stat: 30/46 or 65.2%. I’ll let you guess what that represents. (Hint: Don’t ask John Calipari about it.)
• Maryland 89, Vermont 74 (OT). That’s not a typo. The Terrapins outscored the Catamounts 17-2 in the 5-minute OT period. I think even Gary Williams will have to be happy with how his team finished the game. He may be a little pissed off about the other 40 minutes though. . .
• Tennessee 76, MTSU 66. A thoroughly unimpressive win for the Volunteers. Do top 25 teams really struggle to put away Middle Tennessee State?
• Notre Dame 65, LMU 54. Luke Harangody with a beastly 27 and 17. Hasheem Thabeet is still not impressed. . .

On Tap Saturday (all games EST):

• Delaware State at Kentucky – Noon
• Drexel at #22 Georgetown – 1 PM
• Gardner-Webb at #12 Oklahoma -2 PM
• Indiana (PA) at #6 Pittsburgh – 4 PM
• Morehead State at #3 Louisville – 5:30 PM
• Wisconsin-Milwaukee at #15 Marquette – 8:30 PM

In the worst-things-you-can-do-when-pulled-over-by-the-cops anthology, this story as perpetrated by Akron sophomore guard Rydell Brooks must rank near the top.  Around midnight Saturday, Brooks and his buddy, Ed Davis, Jr., were stopped by police on what they called a “routine traffic stop.” 

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later (photo credit: WKYC.com)

Let’s see, we’ve been pulled over many times in our driving days, and we’ve developed a keen sense of what not to do in those situations.  For one, you don’t start moving around inside the vehicle, nor do you start reaching for things that may or may not be hidden in the glovebox or the floorboard.  You try to keep yourself courteous and polite and you avoid arguing with the po-po man over whatever it is he’s saying you did.  Most importantly, you don’t pull out a bitchin’ MAC-10 and start unloading into the friendly officers under any circumstances…

Brooks and Davis had other ideas: 

A University of Akron basketball player is being held on charges of firing shots at Akron police officers after a traffic stop.  Akron police detectives said Rydell Brooks, 20, a UA sophomore, was pulled over on a routine traffic stop around midnight Saturday.  Police said Brooks fled from the vehicle and fired several shots at officers, who caught him after a short chase.  He is being held in the Summit County Jail, along with Edward J. Davis Jr., 20, of Cole Avenue, Akron. Davis also was in the car, police said.

From today’s arraignment hearing:

Rydell Brooks, 20, a UA sophomore, and Edward Davis Jr., 20, of Akron, are each charged with attempted murder, felonious assault and carrying a concealed weapon.  Bond was set at $1 million.  Brooks is also charged with driving with a suspended license and excessively tinted windows.  An Akron prosecutor said five guns and two ski masks were found inside Brooks’ 1997 Dodge Caravan following his arrest.  According to police, as officers approached the vehicle on Bellows Street around midnight Saturday they were greeted with gunfire. No one was injured in the gunfire. Police have not indicated that they returned the gunfire.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmkaaaaaaaaaaay…  our first question is how the hell did the police catch someone who was shooting at them without shooting that person themselves?  Really, how does that happen?  They’re claiming attempted murder here – did Brooks run out of ammo?  Did he toss the weapon while being chased?  Did the cops have one of those giant cartoon nets they shot out of a cannon?

Your Last TV Appearance (photo credit:  Akron Beacon-Journal)

And our second question is…  excessively tinted windows?  Is that why the cops stopped Brooks in the first place?  They couldn’t have possibly known that Brooks was driving on a suspended license or that he had a veritable armory in the van, so that was their probable cause?  Talk about walking into a hornet’s nest. 

See Rydell, we saw The Wire last week, that’s why you invest in a hollowed-out compartment behind the glove box.  Oh, and call Levance Fields – he seems to know how to get out of these types of messes.  Heck, he assaulted an officer, grabbed at his weapon, and didn’t even get suspended last year (granted, he didn’t shoot at the guy, but these are mere technicalities). 

Predicted Order of Finish:

East

1. Kent St. (22-6) (13-3)
2. Miami (OH) (16-10) (11-5)
3. Akron (17-12) (9-7)
4. Ohio (12-15) (7-9)
5. Bowling Green (12-16) (6-10)
6. Buffalo (7-19) (4-12)

West

1. Western Michigan (19-11) (11-5)
2. Central Michigan (16-11) (10-6)
3. Toledo (14-14) (9-7)
4. Eastern Michigan (14-13) (8-8)
5. Northern Illinois (9-19) (5-11)
6. Ball St. (6-22) (3-13)

WYN2K. We went back and forth on where to rank the MAC because conveniently pigeonholing this league into low- or mid-major status is very difficult to do. Historically, the league hasn’t been more than a one-bid league (since 1985 the MAC has received two NCAA bids only five times), but it has consistently done well with the teams that it puts into March Madness, ranking among the top five conferences in terms of exceeding its expected number of NCAA wins (aka overachieving). Using historical measures of success by seed, the MAC (as an average #12.0 seed) should have won only 12.04 NCAA Tournament games over the last 23 years – instead it has won fifteen. So given this dichotomy in its character, we started looking at recent history to gain a deeper understanding of where the MAC should fall on the ladder. We’re probably going to upset the MAC folks out there, but ultimately we were swayed by the fact that the league has been a one-bid league with no first round wins (losing by an average of 8.8 pts) over the last four seasons (despite having a winning record of 192-186 against OOC opponents the last three years). That was enough to convince us to keep the MAC (for now) at the top of the low majors. But it was a very close call.

Predicted Champion. Kent St. (#12 seed NCAA).  The Golden Flashes are our choice to win the MAC this year (again, shamelessly unoriginal).  But what’s not to like with this team?  They return all five starters from a team that went 12-4 in conference last year, and a program under the tutelage of Jim Christian who has never had an under-20 win season at the school (KSU has had nine straight 20 win seasons).  No one player stands out offensively on this defensive-minded club (#22 nationally in defensive efficiency last year), but 6’7 forward Haminn Quaintance is the man shoring up the team D from the inside (#15 in stl% and #33 in blk% nationally).  Kent St. has a difficult, but not insane (see: Miami (OH) for that), nonconference schedule, featuring games against mid-majors Xavier, St. Louis and George Mason at home, while going to Chapel Hill in early January to play UNC. 

Others Considered. We like Western Michigan to win the West Division, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we think they’re the second-best team in the conference.  Like Kent St., the Broncos also return all five starters, but the 2007 version of WMU simply (16-16) wasn’t as good as Kent St. (21-11).  Their ultimate destiny may depend on the offseason development of the most excellently-named guard David Kool, last year’s MAC FrOY, a player who seems to do a little bit of everything.  Last year’s miraculous champion Miami (OH) was also considered simply because they have Charlie Coles still at the helm and you know you’re going to get a hardnosed defensive team (#28 nationally in eFG% defense; MU didn’t allow a single opponent to score 70 pts last seaon) that tests itself with an extremely tough nonconference schedule every year – this year’s includes five NCAA teams, one NIT team + Cincinnati on the road.  Akron getting left out of both the NCAA and the NIT last year despite 26 wins has to still sting coach Keith Dambrot. But if he’s to become vindicated with a MAC championship this year, he’ll have to do so without conference POY (and former Lebron HS teammates) Romeo Travis and team leader PG Dru Joyce. Can the Zips find point guard play to support another run? They do return five of the top 500 most efficient offensive players in the country (contributing to a #12 raw offensive efficiency), so there is a fair chance of another great season.  Another team that is probably still a year away from competing for the MAC title but is worth watching is Central Michigan.  CMU went from 4-24 in 2006 to 13-18 in 2007, and the pieces are beginning to align for former UCLA assistant coach and current head man Ernie Ziegler.  He returns four starters including Giordan Watson, the leading returning scorer (18.8 ppg) in the MAC this season.   Last year’s league regular season champ, Toledo, lost its top three scorers and is expected to drop off somewhat despite returning the league’s DPOY Kashif Payne. 

Games to Watch.  The MAC has a fair number of televised games this year, so you can actually watch some of these, as opposed to watching for them.  Keep in mind the unbalanced sixteen-game schedule.   

• Kent St. @ Miami (OH) (01.17.08) & Miami (OH) @ Kent St. (03.04.08)
• Western Michigan @ Kent St. (01.27.08)
• Miami (OH) @ Akron (01.05.08) & Akron @ Miami (OH) (02.19.08)
• Central Michigan @ Western Michigan (01.22.08) ESPNU & Western Michigan @ Central Michigan (03.04.08)
• ESPNU Bracketbusters (02.23.08)
• MAC Championship Game (03.15.08) ESPN2

RPI Booster Games.  Like the Big West, the MAC doesn’t play a lot of BCS teams, largely because they want home-and-homes and the higher profile schools aren’t willing to risk a loss when they get a Southland or Sun Belt team to take the one-game lump payment along with their whipping.  Last year the league was 4-25 (.138) against BCS teams, and there are 21 such games on the schedule this year (along with quite a few mid-major games).  Oh, and who does Ohio U. know at ESPN – they’re scheduled to be on the family of networks at least nine times this year!

• New Mexico St. @ Ohio (11.09.07) ESPN FC
• Western Michigan @ Oregon (11.10.07) ESPN FC
• Vanderbilt @ Toledo  (11.13.07)
• Davidson @ Western Michigan (11.21.07)
• Central Michigan @ Minnesota (11.24.07) ESPN 360
• Eastern Michigan @ Notre Dame (12.01.07)
• Miami (OH) @ Louisville (12.01.07) ESPN FC
• Ohio @ Kansas (12.15.07) ESPN2
• Western Michigan @ S. Illinois (12.18.07)
• Kent St. @ UNC (01.02.08) ESPN 

Odds of Multiple NCAA Bids. There’s always a reasonable shot for the MAC to get multiple bids, but we wouldn’t call those odds good this year.  Looking at what happened to Akron last year suggests that the only team that would have a shot at an at-large would be Miami (OH) if they had a great record and lost in the conference tournament.

Neat-o Stat.  There are three new and somewhat accomplished coaches coming into the MAC this season – Ricardo Patton (Northern Illinois), formerly of Colorado where he took the Buffs to 2 NCAAs and 4 NITs in eleven seasons; Louis Orr (Bowling Green), formerly of Seton Hall where he took the Pirates to 2 NCAAs and 1 NIT in five seasons; and Billy Taylor (Ball St.), formerly of Lehigh who is taking over from the troubled tenure of Ronny Thompson there. 

64/65-Team Era.  As we alluded to above, the MAC can make a reasonable case for inclusion into the mid-major category (we define a mid-major conference as one that consistently competes for and receives at-large NCAA bids, minus the BCS conferences).  Despite overachieving when MAC teams make the NCAA Tourney with four teams making the Sweet 16 or better (Kent St. in 2002), it still only has had five years of multiple bids (two each time – 1985, 1986, 1995, 1998, 1999) in this era.  And as you can see, none have occurred during the 2000s.  For now, let’s enjoy the ending of last year’s MAC Championship game.  Bedlam. 

Final Thought.  The conference is very balanced, as five different programs have tasted the NCAA over the last five years, and only twice has a school had the good fortune to go B2B in winning the conference crown (Ball St. – 1989 & 1990; Kent St. – 2001 & 2002).  So it should be no surprise if someone besides Miami (OH) steps up and takes the title this year.  Befitting a conference that has quality depth, we see no fewer than six teams that could make a legitimate run at the conference championship, and a couple more who could easily act the role of spoilers.  As always, the MAC plays quality basketball and is worth catching when you get a chance.